The following invention relates to a rotary feed table for separating slivers and fines from properly dimensioned food product.
Many food products such as french fried potatoes are sliced from raw potatoes to specific dimensions as required in certain applications. For example, the french fried potato product used in fast food restaurants must usually be sliced to meet a standard of one-quarter inch square in cross section.
Potatoes are irregularly shaped and the slicing process, while producing a large number of potato slices meeting specifications, also produces slivers and fines as a result of slicing near the rounded edges of the potatoes. Heretofore it has been very difficult to remove slivers and fines from the potato slices otherwise meeting specifications. Various machines have been employed for this purpose which have not accomplished the desired objective. A type of a french fry sliver removal machine marketed under the trademark SHUFFLO.TM. manufactured by Magnuson Corporation of Reno, Nev. is an example of one approach to french fry removal. The SHUFFLO.TM. remover consists of a horizontal bed of slats in which the individual slats are oriented at an angle to the horizontal. The slats move back and forth in the horizontal plane creating an action that shuffles the french fries from one end of the bed to the other. Because there are spaces between the slats, fines and slivers are expected to fall through the bed while a product having the correct dimensions will not. There are, however, several problems with the SHUFFLO.TM. remover. The first is that the slats can become easily bent which will either mash the product or allow product cut to specifications to slip through. The second is that this particular remover requires an abundance of water to keep the product wet which in turn requires extra equipment such as pumps and sprayers resulting in increased energy cost and expense.
Other methods of separating fines and slivers from sliced food product include the use of vibratory feed trays, screens and the like, none of which has proved to be satisfactory since they either fail to remove the slivers and fines or waste excessive product in doing so.